A couple of weeks back, and over 8 days, I had three - that's right,
three - stays at the JW Marriott, Bangalore. It just so happened that I was having recurring, but unrelated, work in Bangalore, and strangely all my clients were in and around the area that the hotel is located in.
The hotel opened in late-2013, and has close to 300 rooms including a suite. One floor - the 12th - is a smoking floor, and has rooms with balconies, that overlook Cubbon Park and the Vidhana Soudha (legislature building) which can make for a wonderful view in the mornings.
While all my stays were at least for one night, stay #1 was for a very short while - no more than 5 hours (
not unlike the 4-hour stay at the Ritz-Carlton Bangalore in February this year) and stays #2 and #3 were for 2 nights and 1 night respectively. Also, the last two were in adjacent rooms, whereas the first one was in a different room and a different floor. So I'll review these as 2 stays - one here and
one in a subsequent post.
Stay #1
As I mentioned earlier, this was a short stay, no more than 5 hours. I had a dinner meeting with a client, and I got to the room around 11 pm. And I had a 6 am flight to catch, so I left the hotel at four in the morning. This, coupled with very low battery on my phone, meant I could get very few pictures.
This was my first visit to the hotel, and the initial impression was that of a very expensively done-up hotel. It turns out, they've spent an average of Rs 20 million (about US$ 330k) per room, compared to the normal cost that's about a quarter less than that figure. I'm told that's mainly due to the cost of the land, which seems to be a very good reason.
 |
| Chandelier |
 |
| Lobby and seating |
I eventually went up to my room around 11 pm. The room was on the first floor - which was a bit disappointing, because I like high floors. It was also the last room off the corridor, which meant a bit of a walk - not the easiest thing to do when you've had quite a few of Bangalore's best brews!
However, it made up for all that inconvenience, in terms of the room size, which by all standards, was relatively large. Other than the usual stuff - king bed, work desk, TV/mini-bar console and coffee-maker - there was also a nice divan to relax on.
 |
| Kingsize bed with multiple pillows! |
 |
| Divan |
 |
| Work desk, TV/bar console |
 |
| Work desk |
 |
| Coffee-maker |
The bath area, too, was a little bit different than the usual. It was L-shaped, with the shorter arm of the "L" housing the shower cubicle. The longer arm had the wash area to one side and a bath tub on the other - which seemed a little unusual to me, keeping the bath tub and shower cubicle as far apart as they were. They had also provided lots of extra towels - not that I needed them.
There was also a separate clothes closet with an ironing board and iron.
There was also a small welcome snack - mind you, this wasn't the amenity I'd requested (more on that later) - waiting for me. Fruits, and some crispy sweet thing (not sure what exactly it was) with chocolate syrup and thick caramel syrup!
I couldn't afford any more sugars in my system, so I passed on both!
Overall, I quite liked the hotel, but for a couple of service issues. You see, I had a couple of small but instructive incidents that served to confirm my suspicions that the hotel still needed more time to meet the normal Marriott standards. For instance, I checked in around 8 pm, and I'd asked my bags to be sent up to my room which I'd reach only after dinner, by around 11 pm. However, that wasn't done. Also, they took down my amenities request (a snack and a couple of beers) to be sent up to the room as well, but these failed to arrive, even after I'd called for them when I eventually got to the room. Not that I minded either - I didn't need my bags till 11 pm, and I'd had drinks and dinner so the amenities weren't of much use. Still, it was a question of principle. There were also some tech issues, which meant that though I could see my reservation against my MR account, the front office couldn't see my MR number against the booking, so they didn't really believe me when I mentioned my silver status.
When I wrote about all of this as part of my feedback to the hotel, the front office manager reached out to me over email. We had some exchanges, but after a point, it became quite apparent that he felt I was not being truthful. I then had to give him evidence (particularly with the booking being linked to my account), before he got all apologetic. As a consequence, my second and third stays turned out to be very well taken care of, though I didn't get (or ask, for that matter) any sort of compensation.
You'll note, that I've not written about any of the restaurants, or indeed, even breakfast. I had no time for either of those, but I did manage breakfast on the later stays. More on those, later.
Comments
Post a Comment